Inspiring Quotes from the Famous (G-P)
QUOTES FROM THE FAMOUS (G-P)
GENERALIZATIONS: "All generalizations are false, including this one."
GENEROSITY: "I have held many things in my hand, and have lost them all;
but whatever I have placed in God's hands that I still possess."- Martin Luther
"Money-giving is a good criterion of a person's mental health.
Generous people are rarely mentally ill people." - Dr. Karl Menninger
"There’s no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery.
You can’t do any business from there."- Colonel Sanders.
"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose."- Hada Bejar
GENIUS: "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." - Thomas Edison
"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift
GENTLEMAN: "This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him."- William Lyon Phelps
GIVING: “You have not lived until you have done something for someone
who can never repay you.”- John Bunyan
"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” - Winston Churchill
“No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave.”- Calvin Coolidge
GOALS: "Our plans miscarry if they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind." - Seneca
"In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia."
"You must have long-range goals to keep you from becoming frustrated by short-range failures." - Charles C. Noble
GOD AND COUNTRY: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
- George Washington
"If we abide in the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper, but if we or our prosperity neglects it instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."- Daniel Webster
GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS: "Should anyone knock at my heart and say, ‘Who lives here?’
I should reply, ‘Not Martin Luther, but the Lord Jesus Christ.’” - Martin Luther
GOD’S LOVE: "We are all pencils in the hand of a writing God, who is sending love letters
to the world." - Mother Teresa
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." - Augustine
GODLINESS: “A baptism of holiness, a demonstration of godly living is the crying need
of our day.” - Duncan Campbell
“There’s so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us,
that it little behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.”- John Brantingham.
GOOD WORKS: "Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can,
in every place you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley.
GOSSIP: "I find that when I am gossiping about my friends, as well as my enemies, I am deeply conscious of performing a social duty. But when I hear they are gossiping about me, I am rightfully filled with righteous indignation." - Max Gluckman
"Talkers will refrain from evil speaking when listeners refrain from evil hearing" -Bulwer-Lytton
"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - A R Longworth
GRACE: “Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.”- John Stott
“Sin is sovereign till sovereign grace dethrones it.”- C.H. Spurgeon
GRATITUDE: "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous,
he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
GREATNESS: "It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness, and I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."- Benjamin Franklin
"Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but sail we must, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
GREED: "The darkest hour in any man’s life is when he sits down to plan
how to get money without earning it."- Horace Greeley
GRIEF: "Grief is a form of validation; It says the wound mattered."- John Eldredge
HABITS: Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding.” - H. Mackay
HAPPINESS: "Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go."- George Burns. "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."-Abraham Lincoln
HEARING GOD: "Retire from the world each day to some private spot. Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward voice till you learn to recognize it." - Tozer.
"God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us."- F Fenelon
HELP: "When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better
than a pound of preaching."- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
HELPING OTHERS: "There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being—to help someone succeed."- Alan Loy McGinnis
HOLINESS: “A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.”- D.L. Moody
HONESTY: A young lady was soaking up the sun's rays on a Florida beach when a little boy in his swimming trunks, carrying a towel, came up to her and asked her, "Do you believe in God?"
She was surprised by the question but she replied, "Why, yes, I do."
Then he asked her: "Do you go to church every Sunday?" Again, her answer was "Yes!"
He then asked: "Do you read your Bible and pray everyday?" Again she said, "Yes!"
By now her curiosity was very much aroused. The little lad sighed with relief and said,
"Will you hold my quarter while I go in swimming?"
HOPE: “If there is hope in the future, there is power in the present.”- John Maxwell
"There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them."- Clare Booth Luce
HEROISM: “True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others whatever the cost.”
HUMILITY: “A great man is always willing to be little” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When I was much younger than I am now, I thought myself almost infallible;
but I bless God, I know myself better now.” - John Wesley
“Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself.” - Charles H. Spurgeon
“Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered
that I was not God.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"I believe that God wants to put His hand upon us so that we may reach ideal definitions of humility, of human helplessness, of human insufficiency, until we will rest no more upon human plans, but have God’s thoughts, God’s voice, and the Holy Spirit to speak to us." - Smith Wigglesworth
Alex Haley,author of Roots, has a picture in his office, showing a turtle sitting on a fence. The picture reminds him of a lesson he learned long ago: "If you see a turtle on a fence post, you know he had some help." Says Alex, "Any time I start thinking, "Wow, isn't this marvelous what I've done!" I look at the picture and remember how this turtle - me - got up on that post.”
"The wise person possesses humility. He knows that his small island of knowledge is surrounded by a vast sea of the unknown."- Harold C Chase
"He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."- Benjamin Franklin
"I may have my faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them." - Jimmy Hoffa
"Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with." - Peter Marshall
"There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart." - St. Augustine
HUMOUR: "If I had no sense of humour, I should long ago have committed suicide" - Gandhi
"The man who has had the job I’ve had and didn’t have a sense of humour wouldn’t still be here." - Harry S. Truman (ex Preseident of the USA)
HURRY: "Westerners are people with gods on their wrists." - Filipino saying
IDEAS: “Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something.” - E.L. Simpson
“The power of an idea can be measured by the degree of resistance it attracts.” - David Yoho
“Even the best ideas will rarely work unless you do. Many brilliant ideas have washed out simply because there just wasn’t enough elbow grease and legwork put behind them.”
"No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo
IDEALISM VS. REALISM: "Longing for the ideal while criticizing the real is evidence
of immaturity. On the other hand, settling for the real without striving for the ideal
is complacency. Maturity is living with the tension." - Rick Warren
IDLENESS: “I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts
me completely.” - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “Idleness warps the mind.
Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.” - Henry Ford
IMAGINATION: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
IMITATION: “Never take others for your example in the tasks you have to perform, however holy they may be, for the devil will set their imperfections before you. But imitate Christ,
who is supremely perfect and supremely holy, and you will never err.” - St. John of the Cross
IMPROVEMENT: "There’s a better way to do it. Find it!" - Thomas A Edison
INDISPENSABILITY: “Graveyards are full of indispensable men.” - Charles de Gaulle
INDIVIDUAL EFFORT: "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can
do something. What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do." - E E Hale.
INFERIORITY: "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission."- Elanor Roosevelt
INFORMATION: “As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has
the best information.” - Benjamin Disraeli
INFLUENCE: "A life isn't significant except for its impact on other lives." -- Jackie Robinson.
"The important thing to remember is that if you don't have that inspired enthusiasm
that is contagious -- whatever you do have is also contagious." - Danny Cox.
INQUIRY: “He who asks is a fool for five minutes,
but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”- Chinese Proverb
INTEGRITY: "Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing;
either you have it or you don't." - Peter Scotese.
"Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right." - George Eliot
"He errs, as other men do, but he errs with integrity." - Ben Franklin (of George Washington)
"Image is what people think we are. Integrity is what we really are." - John Maxwell
"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed,
but I am bound to live up to what I light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong." - Abraham Lincoln.
"Integrity is one of several paths. It distinguishes itself from the others because it is the
right path, and the only one upon which you will never get lost." - M.H. McKee
"Nothing can be truly great which is not right."- Samuel Johnson
"A great business is seldom if ever built up, except on the lines of strictest integrity"- Carnegie
"He is most cheated who cheats himself." - Leonard Drozd. “To see that my adversary
gives me my rights is natural; but…from our Lord’s standpoint it does not matter
if I am defrauded or not; what does matter is that I do not defraud.” – Oswald Chambers.
INTELLECT: "We should take care not to make the intellect our god;
it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality” - Albert Einstein
INTELLIGENCE: "Anyone who endeavours to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence
being sharpened. You are embarking on something that is going to take the whole
of you, brains and all." - C.S. Lewis
INTENTIONS: "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention." - T.Aquinas
INVOLVEMENT: "The best fertilizer is the owner’s footprint." - South Carolina Saying
ISOLATION: “I know of no more potent killer than isolation. There is no more destructive influence on physical and mental health than the isolation of you from me and us from them. It has been shown to be a central agent in the etiology of depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, rape, suicide, murder, and wide variety of disease states.” - Professor Philip Zimbardo.
"The man who lives by himself and for himself is likely to be corrupted by the company
he keeps."- Charles H. Parkhurst
JOY: "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." - Teilhard de Chardin
JUDGEMENT: “What we do not understand we have no right to judge.” - Henri Frederic Amiel.
KINDNESS: “Always be a littler kinder than necessary.” - James M. Barrie
"I expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there can be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now and not defer or neglect it,
as I shall not pass this way again."- William Penn
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato
"I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not better off for it." - Abraham Lincoln.
"3 things in life are important: The first is to be kind. The 2nd is to be kind. The 3rd is to be kind.” - Henry James
KNOWLEDGE: “We don’t know one-millionth of one percent about anything.” - Thomas Edison.
"Of all kinds of knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are the most important."- Jonathan Edwards.
"There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men." - Lee Lacocca
LIFE: “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it!”- Mother Teresa.
LAUGHING: "You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing."- Michael Pritchard
“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die”- Abr Lincoln
LEADERSHIP: “Ego-centered, ego-prominent leadership betrays the Master.
The best leadership in spiritual communities formed in the name of Jesus, the Messiah,
is inconspicuous, not calling attention to itself, but not sacrificing anything
in the way of conviction and firmness, either. …ill-directed and badly formed
spiritual leadership causes much damage in souls.”- Eugene Peterson.
"The secret of my success is my ability to attract exceptionally able men and to treat them with so much respect that they never leave." - Stanley Resor (1879-1962).
“Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration -- of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.”
"A leader is only able to lead others because he disciplines himself. The person who does
not know how to bow to discipline imposed from without, who does not know how to obey,
will not make a good leader—nor will the one who has not learned to impose discipline
within his own life. Those who scorn scripturally or legally constituted authority,
or rebel against it, rarely qualify for high leadership positions.” - Oswald Sanders.
You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.” - Tiorio
“If you lead through fear, you will have little to respect; but if you lead through respect, you will have little to fear.” - Unknown
"A leader is a dealer in hope."- Napoleon Bonaparte
"If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you."
"It’s critical to distinguish between the skill of performance and the skill of leading
the performance, two entirely different skills. It’s also important to determine whether a
person is capable of learning leadership." Fred Smith
"He who cannot obey, cannot command."- Benjamin Frankin
"The leader who can enlist cooperation and respect, without having to pull rank,
has power of the most positive kind."- David Crawley
"Do not trust proud, self-seeking leadership." - Harold L. Lundquist
"The person who knows how, will always have a job. The person who knows why will be boss."
"Leadership requires followership and following is an act of trust, faith in the course of
the leader, and that faith can be generated only if leaders act with integrity." - Lawrence Miller
“You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go.”- J. Rankin
LEARNING: "The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated
the day after."- Newton D. Baker
"I am still learning." - Michaelangelo
"The inlet of a man’s mind is what he learns; the outlet is what he accomplishes.
If his mind is not fed by a continued supply of new ideas, which he puts to work with purpose, and if there is no outlet in action, his mind becomes stagnant. Such a mind is a danger to the individual who owns it and is useless to the community." - Jeremiah W. Jenks
“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”- W. Edwards Deming
LIBERTY: “Our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else. May our faith be...
not merely stamped upon our coins, but expressed in our lives.”- Peter Marshall
LIGHT: "The darkest night since the beginning of time did not turn out a single star."- Unknown
LISTENING: “To be able to listen to others in a sympathetic and understanding manner is, perhaps, the most effective mechanism in the world for getting along with people,
and tying up their friendship for good.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
“If you can listen well, people will say you’re a good conversationalist.”- Gil Schwartz
“The first duty of love is to listen.” - Paul Tillich
"The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them." - Ralph Nichols.
"When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something” - Jared Sparks
LONELINESS: "Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty."- Mother Teresa
LORDSHIP: “There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say, ‘Mine.’”- Abraham Kuyper
LOSS: “He loses nothing who loses not God.”- George Herbert
LOVE: "Love is a better master than duty." - Albert Einstein
"The love of God is no mere sentimental feeling; it is redemptive power!" - C C Morrison
LOYALTY: “Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over them: only small mean souls are otherwise.- Thomas Carlyle
LUCK: "Shallow men believe in luck and circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Good and bad luck is a synonym in the great majority of instances, for good and bad judgement."- Winston Churchill
MAJORITY: "A man with God is always in the majority."- John Knox
MANHOOD: Phyllis George interviewing Roger Staubach asked him about his good-boy image – did it bother him? Staubach replied, "I enjoy sex just as much as Joe Namath, I’ve just chosen to do it with one woman."
"According to statistics, if a man is the first in his family to accept Christ, 93 percent of his family members will follow his example." - Baptist Press
MARRIAGE: "Marriage is when you agree to spend the rest of your life sleeping in a
room that's too warm, beside someone who's sleeping in a room that's too cold." - Unknown
"A good marriage is the union of two forgivers."- Ruth Bell Graham.
"My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me." - Winston Churchill
"There is no lonelier person than the one who lives with a spouse with whom he or she cannot communicate."- Margaret Mead
“Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.” - Joseph Barth
MATURITY: "The popular notion is that maturity comes with age. Not true. You get old with age. Maturity comes with the acceptance of responsibility in every area of your life." - Ed Cole
MIRACLES: "Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles isn’t a realist!" - David Ben Gurion
MISSIONS: ”The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him
the more intensely missionary we must become.”- Henry Martyn
MISTAKES: “The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.” - E J Phelps
MONEY: "A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."- Jonathon Swift
"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like."- Will Rogers
MOTIVATION: “History has been written not by the most talented, but by the most motivated.”
- Peter Drucker
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar
"It’s not up to anyone else to make me give my best." - Hakeem Olajuwon
NEW BEGINNINGS: "I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in doing so pollute a potentially wonderful day."- Gary Chapman.
NORMALITY: “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.”- Joe Ancis
OBSERVATION: "As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do."
OFFENSE: "It’s a fact that it is much more comfortable to be in the position of the person
who has been offended than to be the unfortunate cause of it."- Barbara Walters
OPPORTUNITY: “We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”- Walt Kelley
"When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us."- Alexander Graham Bell
"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are."
"No great man ever complains of want of opportunity."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"To young men who are looking for an opportunity and who complain there is no opening for them, permit me to say this: ‘Go where the poor and the under-privileged are. They will be glad to hear you. When you have learned to bless them, others will be calling for your services.
Don't wait for opportunity to come walking up to you. Go to meet it.’" - Gordon Lindsay
"Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in an overall and looks like work."
OPTIMISM: "The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist."
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." - Helen Keller
OUTLOOK: "Outlook determines outcome."- Warren Wiersbe
PACE: “Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”- Unknown
PARENTING: "Before I was married I had three theories about raising children.
Now I have three children and no theories."- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
PARTNERSHIP: “Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.” - Augustine.
"The spirit of interdependence will not cost us more than it's worth. On the steep slope ahead,
holding hands is necessary. And it just might be that we can learn to enjoy it." - Paul Harvey
"I have long been profoundly convinced that in the very nature of things, employers and employees are partners, not enemies; that their interests are common not opposed; that in the long run the success of each is dependent upon the success of the other."- Rockefeller
"Few people are successful unless a lot of other people want them to be." - Charles Brower
"It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone."- Andrew Carnegie
PASSION: "You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle." - George Lucas
PAST: "Your past is always going to be the way it was. Stop trying to change it." - Unknown
"You do not move ahead by constantly looking in a rear view mirror. The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you. We must learn from the past, but not live in the past."
PASTORAL QUALIFICATIONS: "Qualifications of a pastor: the mind of a scholar,
the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros." - Stuart Briscoe
PASTORING: "I like the saying that being a pastor is the worst of all jobs and the best of all callings." - Jackson Carroll
PATIENCE is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead.
The great New England preacher Phillips Brooks was noted for his poise and quiet manner.
At times, however, even he suffered moments of frustration and irritability.
One day a friend saw him feverishly pacing the floor like a caged lion.
"What's the trouble, Mr. Brooks?" he asked. "The trouble is that I'm in a hurry, but God isn't!"
"Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast."- William Shakespeare
PEACE: "If God be our God, He’ll give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He’ll make peace within” “There is no peace in the border lands. The halfway Christian is a torment to himself, and of no benefit to others.”
The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble." - Thomas Watson
PEOPLE: "There are two kinds of people in the world—those who walk into a room and say,
‘There you are’—and those who say, ‘Here I am!’" - Abigail Van Buren
PEOPLE SKILLS: “Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.” - Disraeli
“People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them
sit up and take notice.” - Frank Romer
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become
what they are capable of becoming” - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.
"You can foul up on almost anything, and you'll get another chance. But if you screw up,
even a little bit, on people management, you're gone. That's it, top performer or not." - IBM
"Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayst manage to guide an elephant
with a hair." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"I’ll pay more for the ability to deal with people than for any other ability under the sun" - Rockefeller
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people
than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you."- Dale Carnegie
PERSEVERANCE: “If the biographer give me credit for being a plodder, he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit.
To this I owe everything.” - William Carey.
“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.” - Henry Ward Beecher
“It is a hard rule of life, and I believe a healthy one, that no great plan is ever carried out without meeting and overcoming endless obstacles that come up to try the skill of man’s hand, the quality of his courage, and the endurance of his faith.”- Douglas
"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” - Winston Churchill.
"How long should you try? Until." - Jim Rohn “By perserverence, the snail reached the Ark.”
“Consider the postage stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.”- Josh Billings
PERSPECTIVE: "We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are."- Anais Nin
"Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw mud, one saw stars."- Unknown
POTENTIAL: “The real tragedy is the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.”
"Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are capable of greater things than we realize" - N.V. Peale.
"Learn something new. Try something different. With God all things are possible."
POWER: “The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.”
“Power may be justly compared to a great river; while kept within its bounds it is both beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks it brings destruction and desolation to all in its way”
"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best."- Edward Abbey
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power."- Abraham Lincoln
PRACTICALITY: "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."- Henry David Thoreau
PRAYER:
“Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.”- A.W. Tozer.
"The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray" - Samuel Chadwick
"The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution
to world evangelization in history." - Andrew Murray
"I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach." - Charles Spurgeon
“What the church needs today is not machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men and women of prayer.” - E.M. Bounds
“Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D.L. Moody,
I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher.”- R.A. Torrey
“It is obvious that Paul did not regard prayer as supplemental, but as fundamental—not something to be added to his work but the very matrix out of which his work was born. He was a man of action because he was a man of prayer. It was probably his prayer even more than his preaching that produced the kind of leaders we meet in his letters” - Oswald Sanders.
“A sinning man will stop praying. A praying man will stop sinning.”- Leonard Ravenhill.
“Prayer as a relationship is probably your best indicator about the health of your love relationship with God. If your prayer life is slack, your love relationship has grown cold.”
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”- Corrie Ten Boom
"The less I pray, the harder it gets; the more I pray, the better it goes.”- Martin Luther.
“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love.” - Richard Foster.
"Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold of God’s willingness."
"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction
that I had nowhere else to go."- Abraham Lincoln
"Heaven is full of answers to prayer for which no one ever bothered to ask." - Billy Graham
"Unless I had the spirit of prayer, I could do nothing."- Charles G. Finney
"Prayer is not a fruitless exercise that God asked us to perform to determine whether
or not we're faithful. Prayer is the vehicle that releases God to move in the earth!"
"Prayer is simple, as simple as a child making known its wants to its parents."- O. Chambers
"God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”
"God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it." - John Wesley
"Prayer is striking the winning blow. . . .Service is gathering up the results." - S.D. Gordon
"God shapes the world by prayer. The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of Heaven by which God carries on His great work upon earth."- E.M. Bounds
"It is not our long prayers, but our believing God that gets the answer." - John G. Lake
"I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him.
I ended up by asking Him to do his work through me."- James Hudson Taylor
“To pray is to cast off your burdens, tear away your rags, shake off your diseases, it is to be filled with spiritual vigour, it is to reach the highest point of Christian health.”- C.H. Spurgeon
"I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that before was strange and intolerable to me, is transformed into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner"- D. Bonhoeffer.
PREACHING: “His throne is the pulpit. He stands in Christ’s stead. His message is
the Word of God. Around him are immortal souls. The Saviour, unseen, is beside him.
The Holy Spirit broods over the congregation. Angels gaze upon the scene, and heaven and hell await the issue. What associations and what vast responsibility!” - M. Simpson.
“Some preachers think only of their sermon; others think only of themselves:
the man who wins the soul is the man who aims at it.”- Dean Hook
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”- St. Francis of Assisi
"All work and no plagiarism makes for dull sermons!"- Henry Ward Beecher
"Preach as if you had seen heaven and its celestial inhabitants, and had hovered over the bottomless pit, and beheld the tortures, and heard the groans of the damned."- F. Asbury
"I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday; rose again from the dead today;
and is coming back tomorrow."- Martin Luther
"I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men." Richard Baxter
John Wesley: "Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn"
"If I had 300 men who feared nothing but God, hated nothing but sin, and were determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, I would set the world on fire."
"Some people accuse us of too much emotionalism. I say we have too little. That is why we are losing church people to other interests. We need not only to capture their minds; we’ve got to touch their hearts. We’ve got to make people feel their faith." - Billy Graham
"A good sermon is an engineering operation by which a chasm is bridged so that the spiritual goods on one side - the 'unsearchable riches of Christ' - are actually transported into personal lives upon the other."- Harry Emerson Fosdick
PRIDE: "We grow small trying to be great." - E. Stanley Jones
PREDICTIONS: "The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication" (A corporate memo from telegraph operator Western Union)
"Everything that can be invented, has been invented"(US.Patent Office Commissioner 1899)
"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad" (The president of
a Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company. 1903)
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a
message sent to nobody in particular?" (Response from associates of RCA founder
David Sarnoff, circa 1920’s, when he proposed investing in the young radio industry)
"[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first 6 months.
People will soon get tired of staring at a box every night." (20th Century-Fox , 1946).
"There will never be a bigger plane built." (A Boeing engineer after the first flight of the 247, a twin-engine plane that carried ten people)
"With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely
to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market" (Business Week, August 2, 1968)
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’ the idea must be feasible." (Yale University professor’s comment on a paper of Fred Smith proposing an overnight delivery service, in 1970’s. Smith went on to start Federal Express)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
(President of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977)
"That kid can’t play baseball." (Milwaukee Braves manager Tommy Holmes, 1952,
appraising Henry Aaron, who went on to break Babe Ruth’s all-time record for home runs)
"He’ll never be any good" (Robert Irsay, evaluating future Super Bowl champion John Elway)
"You will never amount to very much." (A teacher to a ten-year-old Albert Einstein, 1889)
"Can’t act. Can sing. Balding. Can dance a little" -MGM executive at Fred Astaire’s screen test
"You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck."
(Grand Ole Opry manager Jim Denny, 1954, firing Elvis Presley after one performance)
"We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out."
(Decca Recording Company, 1962, upon turning down the Beatles)
"Get rid of the pointed ears guy" (NBC television executive to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, 1966, recommending the new show eliminate the Vulcan character Mr. Spock)
PREPARATION: “The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.”
- Disraeli.
“Chance favours the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur
"Work as if you were to live a 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow." - Ben Franklin
PRESENT: "It is a mistake to look too far ahead.
Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.” - Winston Churchill
PRESSURE: “No pressure, no diamonds.”- Mary Case
PRINCIPLE: “Where principle was clearly at stake Paul was inflexible and would not yield for a moment, even if the person involved was the prestigious apostle Peter. Because the vastly important issue of Christian liberty was at issue, Paul told the Galatians, ‘We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you’ (2:5). But when only a preference and not a principle was involved, he was prepared to make large concessions.”
- Oswald Sanders, from Dynamic Spiritual Leadership.
"Principle - particularly moral principle - can never be a weathervane, spinning around this way and that with the shifting winds of expediency. Moral principle is a compass forever fixed
and forever true." Edward R Lyman
"Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages. Just because the rains descend,
and the winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands." - Henry Ward Beecher
"In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle stand like a rock."
-Thomas Jefferson
PROBLEMS: "Beware danger signals that flag problems: silence, secretiveness or sudden outburst"
PRODUCTIVITY: "Don’t tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done."
PROGRESS: The Australian coat of arms pictures two creatures - the emu, a flightless bird, and the kangaroo. The animals were chosen because they share a characteristic that appealed to the Australian citizens. Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward, not back. The emu's three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving in reverse by its large tail. Those who truly choose to follow Jesus become like the emu and the kangaroo, moving only forward, never back.
"Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."- James B. Conant
"I walk slowly, but I never walk backwards." - Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.”
PROSPERITY: “Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.”
PURITY: “Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.”- St. Augustine.
PURPOSE: “The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.”- Albert Einstein
"Even if they try to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things
so precious, some things so eternally true that they are worth dying for. And if a person has
not found something to die for, that person isn't fit to live!" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The way to tell if your job is done: if you’re alive, you’ve got a job."- Richard Bach
"Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued
by misfortune; but great minds rise above them."- Washington Irving
"There are two great days in a person's life-the day we are born and the day we discover why."
"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives." - Albert Schweitzer
"It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than you own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will not make sense." - Rick Warren
PURSUIT: "With the catching ends the pleasure of the chase."- Abraham Lincoln.